Yosemite - there are never enough words

Our last visit to Yosemite changed our life. It's what inspired us to see the world. It opened our eyes, our minds and our hearts. I was so happy to be back. Yosemite National Park is situated in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in western California and is most famous for its valley surrounded by towering granite cliffs and North America's tallest waterfalls. Unfortunately upon our arrival I was still feeling quite sick and was too tired and drained to expore that afternoon. I decided to have a nanna nap while D went for a short hike.

When dark consumed the valley floor we headed over to the bus shelter to wait for my family to arrive. As the bus pulled in I could just make out the shadows of my brother and his wife - A&C, my sister and her fiance - K&N and my dad - W. I grabbed my camera desperate not to miss a moment of their arrival in my favourite place. As each of them wearily made their way down the stairs I flashed the camera in their face. It was actually quite mean as they had been travelling from LA on a mix of trains and busses for the last 8 hours but we were making memories so it had to be done! We got shared our dinner space with the many Racoons out that night in Curry Village and headed to bed in our rustic but charming canvas tent (complete with bear bin to store all food and toiletries in). I couldn't wait for the sun to rise and reveal the beauty of Yosemite once again to us the next morning.



Curry Village is a great place to stay in Yosemite to experience the great outdoors with some confort



The canvas tents light up like lanterns in the night sky

Every day in Yosemite is a good day. We were constantly surrounded by nature and wildlife including mule deer, squirrels and birds. We decided to take a hike to Vernal Fall which although not strenuous or long was busy and on a steep incline on the way up. The bad thing about this was that I lost my puff fairly quickly but the good thing was seeing the scenery open up in front on me - the higher we went the more we saw... A few of our group decided to go to the top of Vernal Falls but I was happy enough to sit at the bottom and watch.





W,A,N &D on their way to Vernal Falls



K, me and C having a drink on our way up the trail

By fall most of the waterfalls in Yosemite are dry up due to no snow melt however there was still some water at Vernal

After our hike we relaxed around the Merced River for the afternoon (which was bloody cold) before grabbing some drinks and chilling at our canvas tents. I felt so relaxed and at ease that afternoon. Total bliss there is no where else in the world I would rather have been at that moment. What a great day!

D&A - The face of total relaxation in the Merced River.... Ahhhhh thats the stuff

D,A,N,K&C cheers to Yosemite!

The boys woke early the next morning to start the hike up the Glacier Point via the Four Mile Trail - a moderate hike of 7.7km with an elevation change of 1000m leading from the valley floor straight up. It was too much for me so I took the one way bus up to Glacier Point along with K,C&W to meet the boys and do the much easier hike down with them. The bus ride was very scenic and informative and the views from Glacier point were as beautiful as they were scary, as was the hike down to the floor which took about 3 hours. Steep steps, sheer cliffs and drop offs but oh my god I had never seen anything quite so beautiful. It was actually fairly hard walking downhill, K&N both fell on their arses which was pretty funny but freaked us out as there were so many sections where if you slipped you could easily have gone over. By the time we got back to Curry Village we were all buggered but felt as if we had achieved something very special that day. My legs were like jelly but my heart felt so strong. Needless to say we all slept well that night!

The trailhead at Glacier Point

Stunning Yosemite Valley surrounded my towering granite cliffs and Half Dome

Around every corner is something more spectacular than the last... D&I Reverse Tunnel View

Our final day in Yosemite was spent riding the free shuttle to different points on the valley floor exploring the museum as well as several gift shops while taking photos of the wildlife. The valley is only 1 or 2 percent of the park as a whole but boy is it stunning.

We all fell in love with these little guys. We named one that kept hanging around but the name escapes me now....

Isn't she beautiful

D& I were so happy to share the spirit of Yosemite with our family and so glad they enjoyed it as much as we did but mostly we just felt privledged to be in this amazing place again. I feel at peace whenever i'm there - like all my cares and worries just become less important, which is why I will continue to come back for the rest of my life.